


Down by the River

by OpenWindow



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/M, Jealous Mycroft, Kid Fic, Sherlock Being Sherlock, mention of suicide
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-07
Updated: 2016-12-18
Packaged: 2018-08-29 17:15:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8498437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OpenWindow/pseuds/OpenWindow
Summary: Six years ago Mycroft sent Sherlock's pregnant girlfriend out of the country to protect her. Protect her both from himself, Sherlock and the threats on her life through her association with them. Now with Moriarty returned to London, Mycroft finds his attentions too divided to keep Ellie and Leonard safe abroad. And perhaps Sherlock is finally ready to be the partner and father they always needed. And maybe... maybe both Mycroft and Sherlock need Ellie back in their lives.





	1. Water under the Bridge

Chapter 1.  
She opened the door to the flat and looked at him, waiting for what he had to say. She waited without inviting him in. Determined to be strong. However he knew her better than that. They both knew it. His silence drove her to speak first.

“Mycroft.”

She said it quietly. Almost a whisper. A simple acknowledgement. A hint of chilliness in her voice. A chill towards him that he pointedly pretended did not exist.

“Ellie. May I come in?” He asked pleasantly.

She stood silent for a moment, as though weighing the possible consequences. Than bobbed her head jerkily and moved aside to let him in. She watched him settle on her sofa. Then she disappeared into the kitchen. He could hear the electric kettle being filled from the tap, and then set to boil. He waited for her in the silence.

Ellie returned with the single teacup, in her great-grandmothers blue and white china that he recalled with nostalgic fondness. Black, three sugars, a liberal dash of milk. She placed it on the coffee table in front of him, avoiding his eyes. 

For some reason it somehow surprised him that she always remembered how he took his tea. The last time he had seen her in person was four years ago. Or perhaps what surprised him was that he still took his tea the same way. He studied her as he drank his tea in silence.

Ellie was not herself, he knew that much.

She held herself as though she were afraid she might break, tense and high-strung. Like a rabbit about to bolt, limbs like springs coiled tight. Careful, slow, deliberate movements. She refused to meet his eyes, her eyes staring aimlessly out of the window at the street below, though he was certain she wasn’t looking out at anything in particular. She had used to adore people-watching from windows. But that had always been recognisable in the soft smile she always wore, quietly amused by the little things people did. The little things she noticed that to him and Sherlock were too trivial to note, but that she celebrated as the building stones of life. She wasn’t smiling now. 

Her hair was well-taken care of. But then again, her hair was really the only thing she’d always been vain about. She struggled to focus on things if she wasn’t happy with her hair. He remembered there were times when she couldn’t concentrate and with a growl of frustration she would leave, wash, blow-dry it, and return content, focused and ready to conquer the world again. He was pleased to see that at least that small part of her had not changed.

She was pale now. More so than he recalled, which was saying a great deal as she had always been pale to begin with. She seemed almost translucent. He tilted his head, wondering if perhaps it was the lighting. But he wasn’t convinced. She was pale, except for her eyes. Her eyes were dark, purpled and bruised from lack of sleep. One had always been able to tell her lack of sleep from her eyes. It made her eyes look larger, wider, and sunken.

She had lost weight. She had always been mildly sensitive about her weight. Suddenly deciding that now she was going to diet and eat healthy, and by the next day she’d baked chocolate chip muffins and was insisting that all diets were stupid and not worth her time or effort. Whatever weight she had been trying to lose all those years was gone now, and Mycroft was certain it was not lost in a healthy manner.

For a moment he allowed himself to grieve silently into his teacup, the loss of the bright, young, excitable fourteen-year-old Ellie had once been.

That was when they had first met her, he and Sherlock. When their parents had enrolled them at St. James Comprehensive Secondary School. She had been fourteen. He himself had been sixteen and Sherlock had been eleven. She, always the teachers pet, had volunteered to show them around the school. 

Mycroft wondered what their lives would have been like if they had never met her. What her life would have been like if she had never met them. He attempted to convince himself that she was infinitely better off now with them in her life. But it felt like a lie, heavy, and crumbling like a drying sand castle. He knew that it was he and Sherlock that had benefitted from her friendship and love. And that perhaps, just perhaps, she might have been better off without ever having met them at all. But he couldn’t bear to admit such a thing to himself.

She had been a force. A quiet force, but a force none the less that for once he and Sherlock had broken against like a wave against a rock and not been able to penetrate or walk around. So they had built her into what they were and she had been their humanity. A force for good. The only force for good that Mycroft had ever truly believed in and believed could never be corrupted. 

Mycroft swallowed the last of his tea, preparing himself mentally for what he was about to tell her. Because they had corrupted her. Thy had ruined her. Turned her into a shadow. And now he was going to tear her apart again.

“He’s alive.” Mycroft said, trying to say it lightly, as though he were simply commenting on the weather back home in England or the state of the financial market, only out of politeness.

It was as though with two words, he had breathed life back into stone.

Ellie somehow succeeded in sagging into the sofa and straightening her posture simultaneously. Her eyes that had seemed so vacant and unfocused were suddenly trained on him with a familiar fierceness that had both terrified and awed him since he was sixteen. She had those fierce eyes whenever he’d told Sherlock he was stupid. Protective of Sherlock to a fault. A fault that had always made jealousy flair up within him like a beast. A fault he was not ashamed to say he had later exploited. A fault that he realised he continued to underestimate.

She looked at him in silence and he resisted the urge to shift uncomfortably under her gaze. Only she could make him feel like an awkward teenager all over again.

“Sherlock? Why didn’t you tell me?” Ellie asked quietly, unable to hide the hurt that seeped into, soaked and permeated her question.

“We didn’t want you to become a target.” Mycroft said, clearing his throat.

“I was a target anyway.”

Mycroft inclined his head in agreement. Five attempts on her life. And she only knew about three of them.

“More of a target.” He amended. “I thought you’d want to hear it from me. That he’s alive.”

Her fierce eyes narrowed. “I would have liked to hear it from him.” Hurt. The hurt suffused Ellie’s voice and he wondered if the always forgiving girl he knew would forgive them just as readily for this.

“Yes, well he’s been rather busy you know. Rebuilding his life in the past year and all that.”

She tensed. Sherlock had been publicly alive for a year, and they had not seen fit to inform her.

She remembered the pain. The soul destroying pain when she had found out he was dead. The hope she had held onto for years that one day He and Mycroft would allow her back to London, that she would once again live in London, the city she loved, that she could once more curl up and be swallowed up in Sherlock’s embrace. That one day everything would be the way she had always wanted. 

That hope had died with Sherlock. Because London could never be the London she loved without Sherlock. And there would no longer be a Sherlock to hold her and make her feel like she had come home and that she had found the place in the world where she had belonged all along.

And now Mycroft, darling Mycroft who always treated her as though she were a precious crystal vase, fragile and breakable, had finally seen fit to inform her that Sherlock was in fact alive.

“I understand.” She said stiffly, her eyes shifting back to the window, to the nothingness.

“No you don’t.” Mycroft replied, not able to restrain that mocking note in his voice.  
She looked at him expectantly. But Mycroft didn’t answer her unvoiced question.

Mycroft looked at her sternly. “I understand you’ve cultivated an interest in bridges and deep water. You’re making my men that watch you nervous.”

“I’m not going to kill myself Mycroft.” She replied softly.

Mycroft scowled. “But were you? Or will you?”

“I have a child to look after. I love Leonard too dearly to do something that would hurt him that badly. Besides, I’m not afraid of life enough to embrace death just yet.” She said quietly.

Mycroft ignored the reference to the child he hadn’t seen for four years. She had been pregnant when she had left. Six years she had left England. He had visited only once, two years after to move her again to a new location. Leonard had been a small thing with big dark brown eyes and blonde curls. He noted how her eyes darted to the bedroom down the hall. The child must be sleeping. Or playing quietly in his room. Was it normal for six year olds to nap in the middle of the day? He could readily admit to having no idea of what was normal for a six year old child.

“Not too afraid of life to embrace death yet?”

She tossed her hair over her shoulder and glared at him. “Maybe I’ve just developed a fascination for bridge engineering and architecture.”

“Than why do you spend so little time looking at the bridges and so much time staring at the water?”

She went quiet.

“I’ve always loved the sea Mycroft.” She said quietly.

He recalled her clearly, all pale limbs, messy tendrils of dark wet hair that stuck to her face and navy one-piece bathing suits, meticulously cataloguing the contents of rock pools and teaching Sherlock how to swim. All those summers in his university holidays. She had always picked where they went. One of the few subtle things that she had held over the Holmes boys. And she had always loved the sea.

“If I die, I think I’d like to go by sea. Allow myself to be swept away in its embrace.” She said quietly.

She was refusing to meet his eyes again, and Mycroft wondered if perhaps those that had reported her as possibly suicidal had it right after all. Despite whatever love and loyalty she felt she owed her own child. He had known her to have spoken of suicide once before. Never acted on it. But spoken of it. He had before stood with her on a bridge and watched her look at the dark water with longing. She had terrified him them and she terrified him now.

“I cannot allow you to die I’m afraid.” He said lightly, playing it off as a joke, as though by doing so he could make it less real.

“I apologise, I was unaware I needed the British Governments permission.” She shot back sarcastically.

“It would destroy Sherlock.”

That much was true at least. He refrained from informing her that her death would also have a significant negative impact on the British Government himself. He didn't need to say it, she knew.

She laughed. A quick bitter burst of laughter that sounded all wrong on her.

“He seems to have survived just fine without me for several years.” She said bitterly.

“He’s currently rebuilding his life, and I want to rebuild you into it.”

She looked at him with wide eyes, stunned. “You can’t be serious.”

“But I am.” Mycroft replied solemnly. So very serious. He was a serious person and she knew it.

“You want me to abandon me and Leonard's life here and just launch myself back into Sherlock’s waiting arms? He doesn’t even know about Leonard!”

“Please be honest with yourself, your existence here isn’t a life. It hasn’t been since you believed Sherlock died.” He allowed the silence to drape over the flat for a moment before dropping his bombshell. “Moriaty is also alive.”

She laughed. That same bitter laugh and Mycroft wondered what he could have done differently over the years so she would not have become this bitter shell of a girl he’d once known. Wondered if it would be enough to return her to Sherlock.

“Do you tote around some kind of resurrection stone in your briefcase? Can we place requests as to who comes back to life next?”

“Don’t be absurd. Obviously it only works with suicides.” He said dryly, his attempt at humour rewarded by the first smile since he had arrived.

“Ah, I won’t bother then if you’ll only bring me back.” She jested.

Mycroft frowned. “You said…”

“It was a joke Mycroft. I’m not going to kill myself. I have Leonard, remember.”

Mycroft switched tactics. “We have reason to believe that you are one of Moriarty’s main targets.”

“So you want me back in London where you can keep an eye on me.” She said, her eyes once more looking unfocused out of the window.

“I’d like you back in Sherlock’s life where I know you’ll be safe.”

“I never thought you would put ‘Sherlock’ and ‘Safe’ in the same sentence. You and Sherlock removed me from his life initially to keep me safe.”

Six years ago. Six years ago he and Sherlock had decided to send her out of England in order to keep her safe. She had discovered she was pregnant a month later. Four years ago, without informing Sherlock, he had moved her once again to a new location. His agents had moved her twice more since then. As a teenager she had wanted to travel. She had never quite imagined doing it like this though. And now he was proposing to uproot her again. Bring her back to England. 

Back to Sherlock. Because however much she was in danger in London, here, here he was afraid that she was more a danger to herself than anyone else was.

“Well, it would seem we’ve succeeded in keeping you alive so far.” Mycroft said.

“I’d rather be happy than safe.” She said stiffly. It had never sat well with her to leave England the first time.

“And where would you be happy?” Mycroft asked, believing he knew the answer all too well.

She looked at him helplessly. “I don’t know anymore.” She whispered. Not what he had expected.

“I could make you happy.” Mycroft replied lightly, not daring to look at her eyes when he said it. Unwilling to watch her rejection again.

She knew what he implied. Implied she should pick him, not Sherlock. Should have picked him in the beginning and never Sherlock. He looked at her and their eyes locked, a million moments passing between them. Memories. It wasn’t the first time he had implied it, and they knew it would not be the last. His statement hung heavy like an axe in the silence.

“I promised Sherlock I would never leave him for you. And we both know you are not willing to make the changes I would require in order to be a father to Leonard.” She replied firmly, that familiar fierceness returning to her eyes. That beautiful fierceness that belonged to Sherlock alone.

“Sherlock can’t make those changes either. To be Leonards father.” Mycroft said, not entirely hiding the bitterness in his voice that he knew Ellie would always chose Sherlock.

“That is what you and I think. Neither of us have given Sherlock the option.” She said mildly.

She touched his hand gently to soften the rejection and he kept himself from jerking it away from her and pouting like a child. Fond. He knew she had always been fond of him. Seen him as a friend, an equal, an advisor, a mentor, a pupil, a confidant, a brother. 

The two of them had applied many titles to their relationship since the ages of sixteen and fourteen. But never lover or companion. Somehow that had only ever belonged to Sherlock. And though he resented it he had always admired her loyalty, not only to himself, but to his brother. 

Loyalty. It was one of the things that had attracted the Holmes brothers to the fourteen-year-old Ellie. Thinking on it, which he had done often in the last couple of years, Mycroft wondered if it was Ellie’s unfailing loyalty that had influenced Sherlock to jump off a building for others. It was the kind of thing Ellie would have done for them.

“Than how about we return you to him.” Mycroft said quietly knowing the words were long overdue. Years overdue.

Her shoulders hung in defeat. “I suppose you’ve already packed a suitcase for Leonard and I and have a car waiting to take us to the airport.”

“Naturally.”

“Did you remember to pack me a book?”

“Of course. Your favourite. Enders Game.”

She smiled at that. “I haven’t read that in a while.”

Her smile made him think that perhaps she had already forgiven him.


	2. Congratulations Sherlock

John was somewhat surprised when he arrived at Sherlock’s flat and found not Sherlock, but Mycroft and a woman who did not fit his typical type of PA. His mind instantly filed the things he knew Sherlock would want him to note while he unwound his scarf and tossed it carelessly on the sofa, trying not to grin as he saw Mycroft’s eye twitch. 

The woman was average height, thin, an unhealthy pale pallor to her skin, dark tired bags under her eyes - possibly recovering from long-term illness? - shoulder length curls that seemed to dance on the awkward border between not light enough to be called blonde, not quite dark enough to be called brown. Dressed tidily, but not extravagantly, plain nude flats, smart black trousers, skinny fit, a baggy navy jumper that looked well-loved. She had a dark grey duffle coat hanging on the hook by the door No jewellery. She didn’t need jewellery to accent the ferocious look in her eyes.

John had seen that kind of look in the eyes of doctors determined to keep their patients alive against all odds, seen that look in the eyes of soldiers in Iraq desperate to survive. John had seen that silent deadly determination in Sherlock’s eyes when he had shot Magnusson in the head.

There was a ruthless hardness to those eyes that John found himself wary of. She didn’t look anything like someone Mycroft would willingly associate with, except for those eyes.

The bathroom door opened and a small boy barrelled out, stopping up short as he saw John. The woman held out her hand and the boy hastily moved to her side clutching her fingers in his, his knuckles white with his grip. The fierceness left the woman eyes, replaced by a warm gentleness that seemed almost to put some colour back into her pale face. She lifted the child up with practised ease and held him comfortably balanced against her hip, looking completely natural in doing so. The child's mother most likely than.

Interestingly Mycroft himself seemed to have half his attention on the child. Curious and intrigued by the interplay between mother and child. Which led John to wonder if it was the woman or the child that was important, and what on earth the three of them were doing in Sherlock’s flat.

He was about to open his mouth to ask this last question when the door to the flat burst open and Sherlock himself barrelled into the living room. Sherlock stopped dead in his tracks, his coat halfway off, when he saw the woman and child. Silence reigned and it was as though time stood still.

“What is she doing here Mycroft.” Sherlock finally barked, turning to look at Mycroft with narrowed eyes.

“Sherlock, we do not refer to other people like that when they are in the room. Its impolite.” The woman said quietly and John was sure his eyes were bugging out of his head.

Sherlock slowly pivoted to face the woman once again, taking two long strides so that he towered over her and the boy that peered up at him curiously.

“What are you doing here Ellie?” Sherlock ground out with slow exaggerated pronunciation of the words.

The woman smiled gently. “Here for a family reunion. What do you think?” She replied sarcastically.

Sherlock looked at her uncertainly as though he couldn’t quite tell if she meant it or not.

“Ellie, how about you and Leonard go and unpack your things while I speak with Sherlock.” Mycroft said placatingly.

The woman, Ellie, glared at Mycroft. “What, so you can tell Sherlock you’re afraid I’m going to kill myself?”

Sherlock went pale and Ellie glared at him. “I’m not going to off myself. I have Leonard.” She snapped, putting the boy on the floor, smiling at him softly. “Leonard, now seems like a good time for you to go and start unpacking your books.”

The boy nodded with a serious expression and scampered off to what John recognised was his old bedroom that clearly had a new tenant or two.

“Care to explain ‘Leonard’?” Sherlock asked as his eyes trailed after the boy and fixed on the closed door.

“You sired a bastard Sherlock, congratulations.” Mycroft said dryly.

Sherlock snapped around to glare at Mycroft at the same time that Ellie turned and cuffed him on the back of the head, the fierce fire back in her eyes. 

“If you ever call my son that again Mycroft than you’re not coming within ten feet of your nephew for the rest of your life.” She said, her voice quiet, deadly and serious.

Mycroft shifted uncomfortably, not meeting her eyes, while Sherlock stared at them both incredulously.

“Why was I not informed?” Sherlock asked hoarsely.

“Does two years of being high as a kite and in and out of rehab and on and off the street ring any bells?” Mycroft sneered.

The fierceness flared in her eyes again. “Mycroft, if you can’t say something nice, don’t say nothing at all.” She snapped sharply.

Mycroft shut his mouth and wore an expression somewhere between irritated and contrite. John almost felt like laughing that Disney quotes from Bambi could make Mycroft shut up. In fact, he would have laughed, if his mind was not still processing the fact that Sherlock had a son. A son with dark eyes, blonde curls and this fierce-eyed woman for a mother.

“The grammar of that sentence is still appallingly flawed.” Sherlock grumbled, leading John to believe that this particular phrase had often been used against both Holmes brothers.

“You were not informed about Leonard because may I remind you that not only Mycroft, but you yourself put me under strict instructions not to contact you in any way, shape, form or manner and then shipped me out of the country. Plus as Mycroft said, when I left you were in no state to shoulder fatherhood. You were struggling with a drug addiction that I could not cure for you.”

John could see the hurt in her eyes. The hurt that clearly she had not been enough to help him overcome his addiction.

“Yet here you are. Now, with the possibility of Moriarty on the loose in London. London is no safer for you now than it was six years ago.” Sherlock said, studying her face, cataloguing the changes in her in the last six years.

“I do have limits Sherlock. Here I can protect her better. And as our darling Ellie mentioned, my agents were becoming nervous that she was going to do the job for everyone and ‘off herself’.” Mycroft said gently.

Sherlock and Ellie looked at each other as though holding a staring contest, Mycroft and John holding their breath on either side.

“Why on earth would you do something so foolish?” Sherlock snapped at her.

“Maybe I was following your marvellous example!” She replied coldly.

“I’m younger than you, you shouldn’t follow my example!” Sherlock said angrily before he ran a hand through his dark curls in frustration. “You’re better than that Ellie.”

“Then its a good thing that regardless of wha Mycroft might think, I’m not going to commit suicide. Though I think you’re an awful hypocrite. I don’t see why you’re allowed to be self-destructive and I’m not.”

“I’m not self-destructive.” Sherlock said softly, almost seeming to deflate into himself.

“Don’t lie to me Sherlock, I know you better than your mother.” Ellie said firmly.

The two of them glared at each other. Until the boy - Leonard - called for her from the door. He called for her and suddenly all her attention was on her son, smile plastered on her face, almost meeting her eyes. Almost.

“I need to talk to Mycroft.” Sherlock said.

Her gaze snapped back to Sherlock and she narrowed her eyes at him, her lips pursed in a pouting frown. “Neither of you are going to make any decisions about my life in my absence. Or about his.” She said quietly before turning smoothly on her heel, hands already reaching out for the child who simultaneously reached for her. 

She lifted him easily, Leonard wrapping his arms and legs around her like a limpet, burrowing his head into the crook between her head and shoulder. His large solemn dark eyes watched Sherlock warily and Sherlock stared back at him as though he were a ticking bomb. The door shut behind her and Sherlock was bearing down on Mycroft with a terrifying look in his eyes.

“Mycroft, you…” Sherlock began threateningly under his breath.

“Your enemies know about them Sherlock.” Mycroft whispered. “I have intercepted five attempts on her life in the past year Sherlock, and I believe Moriarty is behind them, I have lost agents, good agents, keeping her alive and I am -” Mycroft paused drawing in a deep breath, the words clearly difficult for him. “-I am struggling to keep them safe. Keeping them abroad used to keep them at a useful distance from your enemies, now it weakens my ability to keep an eye on them and keep them safe.”

“They aren’t any safer here.” Sherlock moaned, dropping himself heavily onto the sofa.

“I need your help keeping them alive Sherlock.” Mycroft hissed. “Now pull yourself together and help me keep your son alive.”

Sherlock looked away from Mycroft, looked at John and John groaned, making his way to Sherlock’s side. His eyes were bright. Too bright, feverish. Unfocused.

“Sherlock you fool, what are you on?” He whispered.

“She can’t be here. He can’t be here.” Sherlock said, his voice uncharacteristically quiet.

—-

Sometimes John couldn’t believe this was his life. Mycroft was directing a ridiculously in depth drugs raid of Sherlock’s flat. Mary was making up a bed at their house for the woman and child who stood on the landing outside Sherlock’s flat. The woman was holding the child in her arms, rocking him as he nuzzled sleepily into her shoulder. She looked exhausted herself. Her fierce eyes dulled. Defeated. Her eyes kept darting between Sherlock’s door and the stairs in a way that had John seriously angst ridden about whether or not she was going to throw herself down the stairs. He was aware that his fear was influenced by Mycroft’s fear of her suicidal inclinations, inclinations she herself had denied, however while Mycroft was often dramatic, he was usually not so without cause.

Sherlock was sat perched in the far corner of the sofa. Shaking. Fists clenched in his lap, teeth clenched together hard that would have had his dentist in despair. John liked to think that Sherlock was many things. His friend, a good man, a brilliant detective, an avenging angel, but he was also a recovering drug addict. A poorly recovering addict and John kicked himself for not keeping better track of that aspect of Sherlock’s life. And there was no way that they were leaving a child in his care in his current state.

The woman - Ellie, she had a name, her name was Ellie, short for something he assumed? - had taken the child - Leonard - out of the flat the moment John had informed her Sherlock was under the influence of drugs. She rather looked like she wanted to take her son somewhere far, far away, but Mycroft had looked at her sternly and she had parked herself on the landing with the door open so she was in everyones line of sight. Including Sherlock’s who every now and again would look at her in wonder as if he still couldn’t quite get his head around the fact that she was here. With a child. This would all be so much easier if there weren’t children involved.

His phone buzzed. A text from Mary saying the guest bedroom was set up for Ellie and Leonard.

“I’m taking Leonard for a walk in the park.” Ellie announced, moving towards her and Leonard’s coats.

“You will do no such thing.” Mycroft and Sherlock barked at her simultaneously. Ellie echoed John’s personal sentiments when she narrowed her eyes at them and informed them that the pair of them agreeing about something so firmly was disturbing.

“We’ll head off to my place. Mary says she's ready for us.” John said.

Mycroft nodded at him and Ellie once more reached for the coats and helped Leonard carefully into his thick navy winter coat before sliding on her own grey duffle coat. They were on their way out when Sherlock smoothly got off the sofa, his shaking under control, and wrapped his long fingers around her arm and she settled her hard, fierce eyes on him.

“I will be better. You deserve better.” Sherlock muttered, not meeting her eyes.

The ferocity melted from her eyes and she let go of Leonard’s hand in favour of wrapping her arms around Sherlock, as though she could swallow him up within herself, and clutched him tight.

She pulled away and looked at Sherlock until he finally met his eyes. “You’re right, I deserve better.” She said firmly, before running a hand gently, so carefully as though she almost couldn’t believe he was really there and she could really touch him. “I deserve better, but I always wanted you Sherlock.” She whispered.

Mycroft cleared his throat loudly and Ellie rolled his eyes at him, dropping her arms from Sherlock and once more taking Leonard’s hand.

“Get this place and yourself clean Sherlock. Leonard’s already enrolled in the nearest primary school and it would be silly to have him moved to one near John’s place.”

John was grateful for the extra children’s booster seat Mary had insisted on leaving in the boot of the car for when their own baby girl was older. Ellie buckled Leonard and herself into the back seat.

“I understand you’ve been out of the country.” John said, attempting to make conversation as he drove.

“Yes.” Ellie said quietly, stroking Leonard’s hair as he was lulled to sleep by the motion of the car. “I missed London.” She said wistfully, smiling out of the window.

“Well welcome back.” John said with a smile of his own.


End file.
